# An Experimental Investigation into the Impact of Socioeconomic Context on Biological Markers of Aging, Health and Mortality

> **NIH NIH R01** · COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES · 2021 · $14,973

## Abstract

Poverty disproportionately impacts minority and rural populations and is very strongly correlated with poor
health over the life cycle, and has been hypothesized to lead to a shorter, less healthy aging process. Poverty
is associated with a greater burden of disease than smoking and obesity combined and accounts for the bulk
of health disparities by race. It is widely believed that an anti-poverty policy—such as Earned Income Tax
Credit (EITC)—could improve healthy aging among working-age low-income adults over the life cycle. It does
so by increasing material hardship and psychological stress—two risk factors that are strongly correlated with
biological markers of premature aging (e.g., shorter telomeres, higher cholesterol levels, and higher blood
pressure.) However, the literature linking poverty to health is largely built on correlational data, which is subject
to confounding and reverse causation. The experienced research firm MDRC has secured private and public
funding for a groundbreaking multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) that examines the causal impacts
of quadrupling EITC for working adults without dependent children in Atlanta, GA and New York City, NY called
Paycheck Plus (PP). Randomization exposes the treatment group to up to $2000 in PP compared to up to
$496 in the control group. However, MDRC is not studying the impacts of PP on health. We propose
leveraging MDRC’s existing infrastructure and our long history of collaboration with MDRC to add clinical,
survey, and administrative measures to explore whether PP improves the health and survival of adult
recipients without dependent children. Timed with launch of the study in Atlanta, we propose in-person health
screenings with collection of important biomarkers of chronic disease, such as blood pressure, Body Mass
Index (BMI), blood glucose, cholesterol, and C-reactive protein (measures that are conceptually linked to
poverty). For both the NYC and Atlanta Cohorts, we propose adding survey data that measures health-related
quality of life and depression. Since not everybody randomized to the treatment group will file taxes (a requisite
for the treated group to receive PP or the control group to receive traditional EITC), we will analyze our health
outcomes using an Intent to Treat (ITT) versus Treatment on the Treated (ToT) analysis. This will produce
Local Average Treatment Effect (LATE) estimates of the unbiased impact of increased PP on health. In
addition, we will collect long-term follow up data on mortality for both treatment sites. We will do so by linking
individual identifiers administrative mortality data from the National Death Index. Finally, we will model the
health and longevity gains associated with PP relative to traditional EITC. This project is innovative for
exploiting a planned and fully funded social science experiment to explore outcome measures that were not
originally considered by the policymakers. This project is also innovative for being a RTC o...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10410771
- **Project number:** 3R01AG054466-05S1
- **Recipient organization:** COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES
- **Principal Investigator:** Heidi Lynn Allen
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $14,973
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2016-09-30 → 2023-01-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10410771

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10410771, An Experimental Investigation into the Impact of Socioeconomic Context on Biological Markers of Aging, Health and Mortality (3R01AG054466-05S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10410771. Licensed CC0.

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